


Interlude (On Such A Winter’s Day)

by paxnirvana



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe Tony Stark - Freeform, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-24 09:18:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/938239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxnirvana/pseuds/paxnirvana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony Stark -- Antonia Eleanor Stark, that is -- goes home again.</p><p>~*~</p><p>Companion piece to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/426400/chapters/716560">All The Leaves Are Brown (And The Sky Is Gray)</a>.  It's probably pretty necessary to have at least read up through Chapter 2 of that one to know what the heck is even going on here. :/<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [All The Leaves Are Brown (And The Sky Is Gray)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/426400) by [paxnirvana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxnirvana/pseuds/paxnirvana). 



> I'm trying to get back from the hole my life is in. Slowly. Painfully. This is just to show those who still care that I haven't forgotten this story -- I just need some more time to make it back to previous levels of creativity again.
> 
> No excuses, just time.
> 
> ~*~

Tony Stark stepped boldly through the portal dizzy with exhaustion and the taste of Steve Rogers on her lips.

Finally. Finally she’d done it. And the look on his face after she kissed him – on Steve’s face – even if he wasn’t truly _her_ Steve…  oh god she was going to have a hard time restraining herself when she did see her Steve next. She shouldn’t have done it. She knew his taste now. Shouldn’t have said anything out loud. To him. Because it was like a curse. Once released, the words, the feelings had surged out of her control.

Oh the shit she’d said. So brave when she was about to walk out the door forever, wasn’t she?

What was he thinking now, that Steve? What would he say to his Tony because of her? Ignore it?

No. Not Steve Rogers. He’d ask. She remembered the stunned conflict in his eyes. No, he’d ask what she’d meant. And that Tony – harder and more desperate than even she was – well she had no real idea what he’d do, backed into a corner that way.

Something stupid, probably. She would. Will. Oh shit.

The only thing she didn’t doubt was that she was right about him: he was just as in love with his Steve as she was with hers. And had been just as obviously determined not to say anything about it ever either.

Neither of them deserved to burden Steve Rogers with their calculating, blood-soaked, ruthless selves. She knew that. Had decided that for herself long ago, looking down at that familiar face sleeping beneath the ice. The woman who made the weapons that killed soldiers had nothing to offer a true soldier save death. Damn it.

The artificial heart braced between her ribs didn’t respond to adrenaline, only to oxygen demand, but she could still feel the jitter of lingering adrenaline in her gut, in the fine tremble in her hands, the blurriness of her gaze, while her pulse stayed infuriatingly steady as a rock.

God, but she could use a… No. Not going there. Not now, or she’d never claw her way back out of the bottle again.

Well fuck that other-her. He’d deserved to be outed anyway. Despite the blasted expression on his face. The raw fear. Well now maybe the bastard would finally nut-up and get a chance to make amends for real to the man he’d wronged. Or maybe she had just ripped the shaky dregs of his life apart again. It didn’t really matter to her. He’d fucked up everything for himself already long before _she_ got there. Good God. That utterly asinine war between heroes…Steve’s blood spreading across those steps… Sharon’s white jump-suit drenched in it… his body lying on that slab, beneath his shield, cold and still. Oh no. _No._ She wasn’t going to let that happen _here_. Never. Hell no. How had he let… fucking testosterone is how, she thought furiously, blinking back the tears that threatened again. Ego and testosterone and oh god who was she kidding? Fought the raw ache of her throat. Licked the last trace of his Steve off her lips. Savored it.

 _Screw you, dick-boy_ , she thought viciously. _At least I finally kissed him- take that and your damn sexy goatee to bed with you alone tonight._

Yet still she’d seen far too much of herself in the choices he’d made about the SHRA. About Asgard. About SHIELD. About Happy – oh god, _Happy._ Had that resonance rubbed in her face. Recognized every self-destructive impulse. Every arrogant decision. Every stupid, overconfident mistake. Just as if she’d made them herself.

That asshole Tony Stark.

Shaken and furious, she finished taking that step away from the dimness of that other Reed’s power-drained lab into Reed’s lab again.

But not the same exact lab. This was the lab _she_ knew, with the more familiar bulkier style of machines, the scattered bits of the materials used to make the dimensional inversion trigger device she’d slapped onto the Beyonder’s chest still lying around on the workbenches, saw the heavier ventilation system to accommodate Sue’s fire, and the reinforced skylights that let Reed’s on-again off-again baby-momma fly in and out of his life with far more ease than she deserved. In Tony’s opinion, anyway. She still wasn’t quite over the fact that in that other reality, dedicated, cheerful, loyal _Johnny_ had ended up the irresponsible one of the Storm siblings.

Well fuck that noise. Sue and Namor deserved each other here. Patient Reed certainly didn’t deserve half of this Sue Storm’s indecisive bullshit.

“Dimensional breech detected. Intruder detected. Security protocols activated.” An overly-robotic voice sounded throughout the lab the instant her boot jets touched the floor. Reed really was crap at making his inventions user-friendly, Tony mused – not for the first time –, as she flipped up her faceplate to expose her retinas to the scanners despite the fact that her HUD flared with defensive alerts.

“It’s just me, H.E.R.B.I.E., ease up,” Tony said, turning to face the main cameras for Reed’s internal building systems so it could identify her clearly. The expected scan pulse registered on her armor’s systems for a long second before the wary systems around her relaxed their defensive stance.

“Identity confirmed: Antonia Eleanor Stark. Code name: Iron Man. Alpha-clearance accepted. Standing down. Welcome back to the Baxter Building, Ms. Stark.”

She flipped her faceplate back down again, glancing around the lab again one more time with a frown. There was no sign of H.E.R.B.I.E.’s mobile unit. It had to be helping Crystal guard Valeria and Alicia in the central core shelter. “Where’s Reed, H.E.R.B.I.E.?” But even as she asked the question her armor OS re-connected to her own satellite systems and the whole of Manhattan bloomed across her HUD. “Never mind, I’ll find him myself.”

They weren’t still fighting the Viderian shock-troops in the Park at least. In fact, there were no battles going on anywhere at all in the range of her immediate scans. Even most of the damage to the city had been reversed. Her, their plan had worked. The Beyonder had been trapped again and his powers neutralized. She quickly checked the date and time and was relieved to see that her other-self had been right; the time flow wasn’t all that different between their realities, but just different enough.

She’d been gone only a few seconds less than the nearly 27 hours she’d spent in the other dimension.

Which was just long enough for everyone to start to believe she really was dead.

She launched herself toward a skylight, the automatic system opening it to let her out.

“Avengers, this is Iron Man,” Tony said into her comm as she flew toward the Mansion at the edge of Central Park. Stark Tower gleamed in the distance, shiny and new and uncapped by an Asgardian tower, but she ignored it. The Avengers here – her Avengers – lived in the Mansion.

“Tony? Tony! Thank goodness you’re alive!” Janet’s voice over the comm was jubilant. Tony grinned behind her helmet.

“Of course I’m alive. Didn’t Reed tell you I was?” she said with as much of her usual arrogance as she could manage. The relief clogging her throat was nearly choking her.

“Well, he said you should be, but—” Jan began, then another voice came on the line, interrupting her. Deeper. Masculine. Achingly familiar.

“Iron Man, report your status.” Steve’s voice. Stern and steady. Tony closed her eyes against the instant surge of need, of longing. Licked her lips. She could still taste him. The other Steve. Would hers taste the same? No. Not hers. She had to stop thinking that way. It was too dangerous.

“Armor’s good,” she said, her voice gone rougher than she wanted. She paused to clear her throat. To try to get a touch more control. “Just had a nice little trip to Never-Never Land is all. You okay too, Cap? I saw you took a bad hit there right before I went in…”

“I’m fine. How did you--” Steve said even as Jan chimed in, drowning him out. “That alien commander broke his shield arm, Tony!”

“Only a hairline fracture,” Steve said easily, but Tony’s gut still clenched with shock.

“Hell,” she muttered as she angled her flight path down toward the front walk of the Mansion. The grass was smooth and unmarred around her as she landed. For once. The doors were opening then on Jarvis’ scrupulously blank face; the one that told her she was really in trouble now, Mistress Antonia, yes she was. And oh it was damn good to be home.

She landed with a half skip, flipping up the faceplate of her helmet as Jan poked her head around Jarvis’ shoulder, a bright grin on her face. Tony took two more steps forward and clapped her armored hand gently on Jarvis’ shoulder, startling him into meeting her gaze directly instead of holding on to his faux aloof butler reserve.

“I’m really okay, Edwin,” she said softly, holding his gaze until a tiny twitch of his lips told her he believed her and the startled relief that flitted over his face afterward shamed her. Had she really become so distant lately that this kind of small courtesy to the ones closest to her was a shock?

“Where’s Rhodey?” she said, glancing at Jan who was watching her closely now, a little furrow between her brows.

“Master James is following up with Doctor Richards and Master Storm in Attilan,” Jarvis informed her as he stepped back inside the front door to let her pass before closing out the world.

“Attilan?” Tony said as she followed, jet boots clumping on the floor.

“Reed hoped Blackbolt could be persuaded to lend us Lockjaw to try to track you to whichever dimension that device sent you and get you back,” Steve said from deeper in the hallway beyond Jan and oh she wasn’t ready to be this close to him again. Not even remotely. But she swallowed and forced herself to lift her gaze. To look him in the eye. To not wonder if his mouth would feel the same if she crushed it with hers again…

Oh shit.

She must have given something away because Steve’s stern, lecturing look suddenly flickered, gave way to an expression closer to the one Jan was wearing.

“Is something wrong, Tony?” he asked, brow furrowed in puzzled concern.

“I-I…” she said, swallowing. Hard. “Shit.” And she used the moment of startled silence to reach up and pull her helmet off. Fumbling with the latches for longer than she needed to. Running one gauntleted hand through her messy hair after. She probably needed a shower. And some sleep. And to be anywhere other than here right now. But neither Jan nor Steve would let her escape without some kind of debrief, she knew. Not unless she skipped to Stark Tower to get away from them, and there was no furniture in her penthouse yet even, damn it. Or a suit removal suite.

“Oh. Oh!” Jan said, glancing between them with a sly look. “Did you end up somewhere with other Avengers?”

“Of course,” she said as breezily as she could manage, tucking her helmet under one arm, forcing her gaze to stay on Jan. Not drift back to Steve. No matter how hungry she was for another glimpse of his eyes, his mouth... “And Reed. How do you think I got back so quick? I’m damn good, but not even I can build a dimensional scanner and transporter from scratch _that_ fast.”

“So you must have met yourself too? How did that go?” Jan asked with an odd little breathless laugh before Steve could get out whatever question he’d been about to ask. Ingrained politeness made him shut his mouth and let Jan’s question stand, but his gaze stayed fixed on her, that frown still furrowing his brow. Which meant she was looking at him again. Damn it.

“Yeah I met me,” she said reluctantly, her body shuddering inside her armor. Cold. How could she be cold? No. Tired. It was catching up to her at last. “He was pretty much an ass about the whole thing, but at least he helped.”

Jan’s eyes went wide. “ _He_?” she said with a squeak of surprise while Steve blinked and Jarvis goggled at her.

Tony smirked over that, some of her equilibrium restored for a moment.

“Yeah. Pretty hot looking guy too, Jan. My eyes, my hair. About six foot. Lean but built. Tidy little goatee. And a sexy liquid-metal suit of armor I was ready to mug him for.” She made no mention of the dark stress-circles under his eyes. Or the pain lines bracketing his mouth. Or the silver hairs glinting amid the black. According to the files she’d dug up, he was only thirty-six: a five year gap with double the mileage, she thought grimly. Her eyes were drawn slowly to Steve again then, despite herself, and she just gave up and devoured him with her gaze.

His left arm was splinted, but not in a cast, despite Jan’s assertion it was broken. He was only partially out of uniform, wearing a plain white – and tight, oh Jesus why – tee shirt with the bright blue pants, belt and red boots of his uniform. He looked younger too, she realized suddenly. More relaxed than that other Steve. Commander Rogers. The one who’d died. The one she’d kissed… on lips so similar to those she was staring at now. Would they feel the same? Taste the same? She found herself leaning forward, the armor servos about to respond. To take her closer to Steve. She tore her gaze away from his mouth then, straightening up, looking desperately at Jan who was watching her with clear surprise now.

“Tony, you’re not fine. Come down to the medbay and let Hank look you over.” But that was Steve. Not Jan. Who was looking at her with something close to understanding. When she didn’t. Couldn’t. Not really. And someone’s hand was on her armor. On the upper arm. Steve’s hand.

“No, no, ’m good,” she said, shaking her head once. Then closing her eyes so she was less tempted to turn and lean against him. He was too close now. “Jus’ tired.” And she was. Suddenly. Crashingly. Exhausted. “Couldn’t sleep ‘fore I built tha’ damn dimensional in-inverter on this side and been workin’ non-stop with Stark Jackass and his Reed Richards on, on that side so I could get back to y-… get back he-here ever since. Prob-probably been up fur... for more than two days solid n-now – give ‘er take half a… half a day with di-dimensional shift.”

“Mistress Antonia,” Jarvis said, his tone concerned now too.

“Okay, that’s it. Get that armor off and get to bed, Tony. _Right now_.” Thankfully that was Jan taking her other arm. Speaking. Not Steve. Cap. Captain America. Keep it together. Keep it distant. Tony squeezed her eyes closed tight and sighed heavily as they guided her stumbling feet toward her garage and the armor removal bots.

“Autopilot, Tony,” Jan gasped at her once, and Tony nodded but did nothing except let her head hang down until her chin hit the chest-plate while the two of them maneuvered her armored form awkwardly through the halls. Other voices – surprised, pleased, annoyed – chimed in along the way but her hazy brain didn’t bother to identify them beyond ‘familiar’.

She stumbled heavily once, at the top of the stairs, and Steve finally busted out his override code and set the armor on autopilot himself. It walked her down the short flight of stairs for them then. Walked her into her garage and spread her out to submit to the disassembly machine’s tender mercies.

Hands were waiting to catch her when the last of the armor came free. A sucked in breath that made no sense to her wandering thoughts until Jan tugged a soft sweatshirt on over her bare arms – she was so cold outside the armor, shaking, shaking –, zipped it up over her chest and she vaguely remembered she wasn’t wearing her prosthetic.

Oh yeah. Only half a chest. One boob. Ugly implanted device. Not something she usually advertised. Shit. She huddled in on herself.

“It’s okay, Tony,” someone said, his voice soft. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’re alive, you’re safe. You’re home.”

Hands. Leading. Guiding. Moving her. Warmth against her side that she curled toward. Let her head lay against. Firm, solid.

“Home is where the heart is,” she heard herself say in a heavy slur.

“It is,” Steve said softly near her ear, his arm tight around her back, her arm slung limply over his shoulders as he led her along a darkened hallway and she was tempted to look at him, but didn’t dare. This was worse than being drunk; she was dangerously close to losing her grip, on, well, everything.

But before she could quite slip that last fraction of control she was flat on her bed. Soft. Comfortable. Warm. And the room was dark. Quiet. No danger looming. No distance yawning. No urgency driving her, for once. And a warm hand, -- broad, gentle –, was stroking her hair back from her face and then Antonia Eleanor Stark passed gratefully into sleep.

 _Home_.

~end~


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> um... yeah. more of this trainwreck.

It was an argument that drug her out of sleep long before she was really ready to wake up. Two familiar male voices outside her bedroom suite. Not loud, but intent, intense. She woke with a jerk and a gasp and a palm-out flex of her wrist that just tangled her hand in the sheet.

“I told you she’s fine, Reed. She just needs rest.” That was Steve. Firm. Stern. The way he usually talked to Reed. And to her too, come to think of it, when she’d fucked something up again. She groaned, pawed her hand free and rolled over on the bed until she was facing the door, her body still feeling far too heavy, her brain slow. She blinked blurry eyes open. The room was dim, but not dark. It was still some level of daylight outside, it seemed, by the faint light showing at the edges of the curtains.

“I would like to run a dimensional scan of her anyway – just to be certain. We still have no idea how she managed to return so quickly.”

“Reed…”

“And to be certain this is actually our Antonia.”

That silenced Steve for a long moment. Then, “What do you mean?” he said, his tone gone hard. Wary.

“We were fighting against something capable of re-shaping reality on a whim, Steven,” Reed said, in that tone that warned her he was about to launch into some long drawn-out explanation filled with quantum-derivational math that would leave Steve behind in about half a sentence but still wind him up about something that wasn’t even relevant. Frowning, she sat up and somehow managed to put both feet on the floor without falling on her face. But it was a near thing.

“Jesus Christ, I’m me,” Tony called irritably at the door, because that bullshit needed to be nipped in the bud. “Just let him in to do his scan, Steve, it’s fine. And if you two are going to have another pissing match, you could at least have had the courtesy to do it out in the lounge instead.”

Her bedroom door opened then, Steve’s familiar outline filling the frame, the light from the hall behind him casting his face in shadow so she couldn’t see his expression. But she could guess it. He was probably frowning a little in that way that put the little crease between his eyes that he only seemed to get because of her. Beyond, she could see the stretch of Reed’s neck, his shoulders, extending his height so he could look beyond Steve’s bulk. He looked worried. Damn it. She scrubbed both hands over her face for a few moments to try to give her brain time enough to focus through the cloying haze of exhaustion. When she dropped her hands it was to find Reed already kneeling beside the bed, some new device clutched in his hand, that frown still etched on his face. Steve was standing behind him with his arms crossed over his chest, watching them both. No one had turned a light on yet, so it was just the hall light spilling in across the carpet, throwing harsh shadows. It made Steve difficult to see.

“What time is it?” Tony said as she felt the sleek brush of Reed’s elongated fingertips against her knee. His fingers slowly, hesitantly, circled her leg just below the knee. Holding on to her below Steve’s ready line of sight. Something in her gut jerked. It was never a good sign when Reed got discreet.

“3 PM,” Steve said, his tone flat. “You’ve only been asleep for just over three hours.”

Not nearly enough sleep yet. She was so tired. Of all of this.

“Huh,” was all she said though, then looked sideways at Reed. “Did King-In-Law actually let you borrow his doggie?”

“Black Bolt was quite accommodating,” Reed said, his tense expression smoothing out a little when she didn’t shake off his touch. Oh. That’s right. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms earlier. Though she could barely remember the argument now. “Lockjaw was still eliminating trans-dimensional scent traces when we received the Avenger’s notification of your return.” He paused. His hand flexed on her knee. “However Johnny is rather annoyed with you; Crystal has now decided to remain in Attilan for an extended visit.”

Tony waved one hand in the air vaguely, her head drooping forward. “Pfft, whatever. Not caring about the soap opera right now. Just scan me an’ lemme go back to sleep.”

With a cluck of his tongue, Reed lifted his device. His other hand slid away from her knee slowly. Hums and chirping little beeps came from his device. She stifled a laugh. It came out sounding like a moan.

She found herself tilting forward until her forehead lay against Reed’s familiar flexible shoulder, a wave of exhaustion making her muscles slack. Her mind spun slightly still. Too much, too fast. All those possibilities from the other world. All the things to track down here. To head off. To stop. So much blood… she flinched and an arm wound around her to keep her in place, his head tilting until his cheek brushed the top of her head. She thought she heard feet moving across the carpet then. A door closing. But she was too comfortable, too far gone to pay close attention to it.

A machine somewhere beeped once and he let out a low, shaky breath.

“So ’m I me?” she murmured against Reed’s neck, already drifting back into sweet, sweet darkness. He smelled of sweat and copper, burned plastic and ozone. All familiar, even if his muscles were too sleek, his body too giving. Not what she remembered wanting. But nearby for now. Easy. Safe.

“Yes you are, Antonia,” he said as she felt his arms wrap all the way around her. She was lifted up, turned. Laid out flat again. Weight depressed the bed beside her hip. Her hand clenched around another hand. She felt fingers in her hair. The faint brush of lips over hers.

“Stay,” she murmured against those lips, already mostly gone.

“Of course,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is getting away from me. Tony... you're a mess. -_-;

When Tony woke early the next morning she was alone. But she could see where another head had lain beside hers on the pillows now strewn across her big bed. She vaguely remembered Reed slipping out to return home – he was adamant about being there if it was all possible whenever his daughter Valeria woke up – at some point during the night.

Okay. This might get awkward. Reed had never stayed with her here before. She had made a point of only sleeping with him in the Baxter Building. So she could leave whenever she wanted. It was just easier for both of them that way.

Something else nagged at her memory too. Hadn’t Steve been…?

 _Oh. Shit_.

She clawed her way out of that damning bed and threw herself into the shower. Washing off two, now three, days of accumulated armor stink and stress-sweat left her feeling only partly refreshed. There were still the waves of guilt wracking her. She shampooed her hair ruthlessly and argued with herself. They hadn’t even had sex! She had no reason to feel this pang of guilt. It wasn’t as if Steve didn’t know she got around – she was hardly quiet about it herself and the media barely let her walk out the door beside a man without screaming that wedding bells were immanent. But she’d been careful to keep the actual in-your-face evidence to a minimum around him. No sense rubbing his early-century nose in things.

Though it hadn’t been as much of a problem since she stuck this metal heart in her chest. That had curtailed her night-time activities severely, all told. It had been pretty much only Reed since, if she was honest with herself.

It made her look… well, at least the media hadn’t gotten wind of it yet.

Still, they’d only slept-slept together last night. Even that distinct fact didn’t lessen the regret clawing at her gut. She’d turned to Reed. Right in front of him.

Then she took a deep breath and stared herself in the mirror. She deliberately didn’t look lower than her face, though she could see the dark, awkward shadow marring her chest below. She looked less blasted-tired, but still weary, with her short damp black hair standing up in wild disarray from the careless rub of a towel, her face pale, her mouth red from the way she chewed her lips. Wasn’t this the way she really wanted it? To keep him from knowing how she truly felt? To protect him from the endless, ongoing bloody legacy of her life?

She licked her lips. Remembered the feel of his – no, of that other Steve’s. Closed her eyes against the stab of memory with an ache behind her breastbone.

Wasn’t this how she wanted it?

Coffee was needed to complete the awakening process before she could even begin to try to figure out how much damage had been done. And the only place to find coffee was in Jarvis’ kitchen.

She dressed to work in her garage in a pair of worn button-front jeans, one of her sturdy sports bras with a falsie built right in, her work boots, and a plain gray tee shirt with the Marine Corp logo on it. Probably one of Rhodey’s she’d picked up once upon a time and never returned. Oh well. Then she moved warily out into the common areas of Avengers Mansion to find that precious liquid of life.

Glancing at a clock as she passed, she noted it was still early. For her, anyway. A little after 6:30 in the morning. The odds were high, then, that she’d run into Steve. She braced herself, but the only person in the kitchen was Jarvis. He turned when he heard her enter the room and smiled at her.

“Good Morning, Mistress Antonia,” Jarvis said, already moving to pour her a cup of coffee. She took a seat at the breakfast bar on one of the tall stools there and accepted it from him with a grateful smile. “You look well-rested. For once.”

She smiled wryly at the dig and lifted the mug. Black and strong. The way she liked it. “’Morning, Jarvis,” she said after taking an exploratory sip. Not scalding, but only barely. She took a deeper gulp then, savoring the heat and the flavor before adding. “Anyone else up?”

“Master Steven just left for his run. Everyone else is still abed.”

“Okay,” she said, trying to ignore the cheap sense of relief that she’d dodged that awkward meeting, and concentrated on getting coffee into her system. She tried not to wince when Jarvis slid a plate with a sunny-side egg, a slice of wheat toast with strawberry jam and half a dozen arcs of sliced melon in front of her too. But when she looked up to tell him she wasn’t hungry, her stomach growled. Loudly. Sheepishly, she accepted the fork he handed her with a raised brow and began to stuff the food into her mouth.

“Will you be staying in today, Mistress Antonia?” Jarvis asked as he went about his duties, straightening up his workspace.

“Yep,” she said around a final bite of melon. “Need to work on the armor.” She didn’t really. What she needed to do was unload the data she’d hijacked from male-her’s dimension and start analyzing it. In depth. Then she’d be able to determine, what, if any of it, she would share with Reed ,Hank, Bruce, T’challa or Henry on this side.

“Shall I bring in the pot then, madam?” Jarvis asked drily after topping off her mug.

“That’d probably be best,” she said, mopping up the last of the egg with the crust of her toast and stuffing it into her mouth. Then she was sliding off the stool, re-filled mug clutched firmly in hand, and was escaping to her garage long before Steve could concievably return from his run.

She really wasn’t ready to find out what Steve had thought of Reed staying over in her suite last night. She probably never would be. Good thing she had all that data from her counterpart’s universe to look through. She grinned to herself in relief. It would give her a good excuse to be legitimately busy for a while, anyway.

~*~

Her artificial heart beat was solid and unchanging, the blood flowing normally in her veins despite the panicked terror resonating through her whole body.

Fast-walking into Hank McCoy’s medical-cum-everything lab on the other end of Avenger’s mansion from her garage, Tony shut the door behind her, locked it, and then began stripping down to her underwear. When she was mostly bare, Tony sat down on the exam table and stared across the room at an astonished, open-mouthed Beast.

Her only thought had been to get here. Get here and find out as soon as possible if… _if_ …

The information in that last set of files she’d reviewed from her counterpart’s world had shaken her right to her core.

The possibilities churned in her gut. Immortus. Onslaught. _That boy._ Maya Hansen and her Extremis. And then, finally, his own brain-wipe. Well, fuck that man’s life. And fuck her too if she had any of that shit already inside her own brain. Waiting to be triggered. She had to know. Right away. But the Beast, Hank McCoy, was still just staring at her over his half-moon glasses, his white lab coat hanging loosely over his blue-furred body, his astonished expression fading now into faint amusement and she had no time at all for any of it right then.

Panic danced along her nerve endings. Made her hands clench to white-knuckles on the edge of the table beside her bare legs to keep from clawing at her own scalp, her skull, to get to whatever might be hiding beneath. Waiting. Her skin crawled.

A scream was lodged in her throat. She had to swallow hard to keep it back.

“Well, my dear, I’ve always found you quite attractive and all you had to do was ask but…” Hank began with a waggle of his blue bushy brows and she cut him off with a sharp slice of her hand through the air, her return glare like ice. It was nothing more than his usual harmless flirting banter, and normally she’d dish it right back at him, or escalate it until he backed off, but today, now, _not now_ , she couldn’t take it.

“No bullshit, Hank. I need you to look in my brain,” she said urgently, gorge rising in her throat. “There may be… there’s something I need you to look for. Right. Now.”

His expression went flat and wounded for a moment before it thankfully faded to a cooler, more business-like one. “I was told you were uninjured when you returned from your sojourn elsewhere, and, well, I am rather involved with other projects at the moment, Antonia, since you’re asking _so politely_. There are disturbing signs among certain mutant hating sub-groups…”

“ _I know_ ,” she said cutting him off impatiently. Sharp and hard. “Senator Kelly is going to propose a Mutant Registration Act and then things are going to go very, very wrong. I’ve got some ideas about dealing with that. But first I need to make sure no one’s camping out in my head, okay, Hank?”

Hank gave her a different, more horrified astonished look, his blue hands gripping the metal edge of the desk in front of himself hard enough to warp it slightly. “What do you…?”

“Long story. Scan my head first, Hank, and then I promise to bore you with it all in great detail,” she said through tightly gritted teeth to keep from howling out in helpless fear and rage. “But do that fucking scan _now_ , okay?”

~*~

When she was done throwing up into his scrub sink, Hank’s big blue hand stroking her back soothingly through the last of the body-wrenching heaves, she leaned against the counter weakly and wiped at her mouth with the back of one shaking hand. _Yinsen_. Even he’d betrayed her too. Not that she hadn’t deserved it back then… but. God damn it. _God damn it all to hell._

“How do I get it out?” she demanded, meeting Henry’s concerned gaze, the image of the small webwork of foreign nodes _inside her brain_ still dancing behind her eyes.

“I-I’m not certain, Antonia. I’m still not even certain how it’s supposed to be activated, or how it even got there. But we’ll certainly have to bring this to Janet’s attention as current chairperson— let the Avengers know you’ve been compromised…”

She turned and gripped Hank’s wrist urgently. “No! No, Hank. I want to deal with it before it becomes a problem. You can’t tell them – you’re my doctor and you owe me confidentiality. Swear it. Or I won’t tell you what I know about Kelly’s plans.”

Hank met her gaze through his glasses, wide-eyed with horror. “That’s blackmail, Antonia! There are lives at stake! _Mutant_ lives!”

“ _Not_ only mutant lives, Hank! All of us!” she all but screamed at him. And he blinked at her in shock as she struggled to get herself back under control. “But I can’t…” She gripped the edge of the sink, shivering. Fought back another heave of her stomach, acid searing her throat as she remembered blood running down marble steps. She swallowed it down, felt it burning past her false heart. “It’s… oh god as hard as it is to believe, Hank, that’s not the worst thing I know could happen now… oh fucking hell. But I can’t… I can’t do _anything_ if I don’t get this thing shut down first. It’s a… a gateway into my head, into me and everything I’ve ever built. The suits. SI. And the Avengers. And I already know too much and that’s going to be used against me, against all of us. Soon. Much too soon. So just… Hank… I have to. I have to do this! So help me now. Help me and I _swear_ it’ll help all mutants too.”

Hank held her gaze, his own shadowed, torn, for a long space of time. Until her artificial heart was actually pumping harder for once, her blood throbbing with sickening unfamiliarity in her throat, her wrists, but only because she’d been holding her breath.

“All right, Antonia,” he said with a frown, the expression on his blue-furred face grim. “I’ll keep your secret. But you’ll have to give me something to use in the future. Just in case… just in case I can’t do anything about this.”

She straightened up. Turned. Braced her back against the sink.

“I’ll do you one better; I’ll give the X-Men the Marauders’ plans right now.”

~*~

Storm was the current leader of the mutant X-Men. Without being called, the X-Men had answered the plea of a stricken city and helped the rest of them fight off the assault on New York by the Beyonder’s forces. What had astounded Tony was the fact that Storm was apparently without her powers for some reason. And yet she still led the X-Men. It was an odd, but working, situation.

Storm stood now waiting at the end of the cargo dock where she’d reluctantly agreed to meet with Tony, her arms crossed over her chest as she leaned back against a metal shipping container painted in Stark International colors.

The woman had one heavy black motorcycle boot braced against the container, her bare shoulders pressed back against cold metal as Tony dropped out of the sky in front of her. Tight black leather and a Mohawk suited her, Tony thought, not for the first time, but those cat-slit eyes had always vaguely creeped her out. Mostly because they made her feel like a mouse about to be pounced on by a cat. Even if she didn’t have her powers right now, Storm was still an imposing presence. Regal and proud. And wary.

“Hank tells me you’re the leader of the Morlocks now too,” Tony said without greeting or preamble. And learning there was an entire sub-culture of not-entirely-socially-acceptable mutants living in the sewers and utility trunks and abandoned subway lines beneath New York City had been a bit of a shock to Tony. More because she’d overlooked that slow accretion than that they were actually down there. The sky had always been of far more interest to her than the underground— there were others on that watch. Like Reed. And yet _he’d_ missed most of the details of this growing sub-culture too. Dick-boy had been right about that; they needed to get their shit together over here too… _all_ the superhumans. Mutant or mutate; technologist or magus, alien or native. It didn’t really matter in the long run. Regular humans were perilously close to being terrified of all of them equally.

“And of what interest is this fact – or most matters to do with my team – to you _or_ the Avengers, Iron Man?” Storm said in her melodious and even voice, the dissonance of a punked-out woman speaking so jarring for only a moment.

“Well, until recently, I didn’t give much of a shit, to be honest,” Tony said harshly and was rewarded by the narrowing of Storm’s gaze. She had her full attention at least. “But that’s not _entirely_ my fault, is it? Xavier and Summers have always been closed-mouthed and secretive about your team and your work, despite Charles’ efforts to improve public acceptance for mutantkind in general. But segregation,” and she used the word deliberately, “has never worked out well for breaking down mistrust and bigotry, has it?”

“I fail to see any reason to continue this meeting,” Storm announced, straightening away from the container with a frown. There was motion nearby. A shadow darted across the gap between containers to her left. Tony’d noted the observer on her way in. Marked it in her HUD and let the suit keep track of it. It was close, but not too close. A skinny, ragged-looking woman in black leather. Storm’s backup, Tony figured. If not, they’d both know soon enough.

“Your Morlocks will be in deadly danger very soon,” Tony said bluntly. And that earned her another searing glare from Storm.

“From the Avengers? Or the government?” Storm demanded and Tony shook her helmeted head.

“No,” Tony said and played her trump card. “From the Marauders— mutant assassins who work for Mr. Sinister.”

Storm took a long stride forward. Got right into Tony’s face, heedless of the armor, and her expression was fierce, hard. “Tell me what you know and how you know it. _Now_.”

~*~

Tony layered the data from that other world under multiple layers of the best new encryption algorithms she could devise, stealing ideas from her other self ruthlessly. Then she split it randomly and encrypted it again. Stored those pieces in various, entirely physically separate, secure locations in some of her holdings around the world. She didn’t want anyone stumbling over this data easily, or, honestly, ever.

Hank had told her it would take him a week of planning to prepare properly for the surgery to attempt to remove the control net in her brain. To take out the things that had been left behind by the man she’d once trusted, grieved for, changed her entire life for unconditionally.

Acid was a near-constant taste in the back of her throat these days. She ignored Reed’s increasingly concerned calls and messages. Avoided Steve too, when she could. Fought with him when she couldn’t. Heated arguments about how she was neglecting her duties to the Avengers, her company and everyone else who depended on her (by which he meant Reed, she knew) to go out and, in his words “just fool around”. Terrible conversations where she could see the confusion and pain in his eyes over her sudden inexplicable, inflexible change in behavior.

But she didn’t dare relax around him, or anyone else she truly cared about. Because she had no real idea when or from where, exactly, the signal that would take her will and her _self_ away would finally come. Not in this world. Because events here certainly hadn’t happened exactly the way they had in her counterpart’s life. Critical timing had been altered by the differences between their worlds. By his reckoning, she wasn’t supposed to have her metal heart yet; he’d relapsed into drink again by now. So she only really knew possibilities, not certainties. But even those possibilities left her breathless with guilt and fear.

Because the path had already been there from the start, as it had been in his world too, and she was vulnerable now. _Right now_.

So the only way she could protect those most important to her was to send them – or drive them – away.

She dodged Happy by sending him to do a complete pre-acquisition investigation of a company called FuturePharm. She sent Jason Burne, her former boyfriend, sometime escort and personal security consultant (who was also a fantastic lay), off to London to see if he could track down a bitter orphan immigrant Chinese kid going by the name Gao Yan.

She banished Rhodey too, after allowing herself one final day to spend with him first, just the two of them, flying free and reckless, indulging their shared joy of flight. The excuse was a good shakedown of a final upgrade to his silver-and-red Iron Man armor. They went out in the sky above the Atlantic, his suit streaking beside her own gold-and-red armor. She couldn’t resist telling him about the other world, at least a little bit, while they mock-dueled. How the Rhodey over there’s suit was named War Machine instead. He’d laughed and insisted being “Iron Man too”, now that the world knew he’d filled the suit when she couldn’t, didn’t bother him at all. She’d fought back the choking feeling in her throat and laughed along with him. Then the very next day she’d locked him out of her garage and all the armories in New York. Told him she was transferring him to LA, to work with Wanda and Clint and the West Coast Avengers, and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer or she’d lock him out of the armor forever. He had gone to LA, furious with her, obviously hurt, and hadn’t called her since.

But she’d been told since that he’d re-named the silver and red suit War Machine. Gotten Hank Pym to strip it down to its base titanium-steel gray surface too. Just like in that other world. She’d laughed alone in her garage until she wasn’t sure if she was crying or not, though the ache in her chest felt like neither.

Pepper Potts and Bambi Arbogast and her lawyers at Stark International were the only ones she interacted with regularly after that. Setting them on the courses that she needed them to take. Filling them in on only the barest guidance they had to have in order to begin, letting them discover what was happening in the political landscape of this world uncontaminated by exposure to expectations from another. While she walked and talked and made deals in the back-rooms and exclusive clubs around New York and Washington D.C. where the dirtiest deals were made. Where greed and opportunism ran rampant amid the likes of America’s wealthiest, such as Osborn and Worthington, Rand and Hammer, Stane, Frost and Von Strucker, Shaw and Bain.

But, to her dismay, the information they brought back to her was frighteningly similar to her own unpleasant revelations.

Kelly’s Mutant Registration Bill was gaining strength, it was close to going to committee. Soon – especially since the half-remembered attacks by the Beyonder had only fed the public’s growing fear – it would be a juggernaut. And behind it, she was already seeing the first stirrings of the broader bill to follow. The first hints of the desire to try to rein in _all_ powered beings. The craven, childish wanting, to put it as her male-self had, to try to ignore their inescapable membership in the greater galactic civilization. But like knowledge of the atomic bomb, not only was it impossible, it was ignorant and dangerous to try to ignore the rest of the universe by punishing the heroes along with the villains if they didn’t comply.

There was no way humanity and Earth would survive by turning inward, by hampering their super-powered beings with rules and restrictions now. Too many space-going empires knew of them already. Too many threats existed that required instant, not debated, response.

War was never a democracy.

Earth had driven off _Galactus himself_ more than once, again as recently as just a few short months ago, so no species in the Galaxy would ever forget the name “Earth” now.

Not that she objected to the basic idea of training heroes that had been tacked onto that other world’s law like an after-thought, reaching out to the new ones to give them guidance, and to the budding young mutants who were springing up everywhere around the globe. That part was a solid, practical goal. But not the exposing of the ones who chose to serve greater goals. Not to open them up to attack in their down-time as well. She’d seen the cost of that for herself once she went public, and it was high. But she was well-buffered and shielded by her wealth. Few had that luxury.

She’d thrown herself into scouring the data she’d brought back then byte by byte. Cursing herself for being so distracted and dismayed by the graphic images of Steve’s death that she’d missed locating key events in the past of that world that might have influenced the final events that forced it all to come to that point.

She’d been warned, at least. She had that advantage. She knew, now, of some possible attempts that could be made to force her into the role of oppressor.

And the X-Men had been warned too. Storm. Tony had received overtures from the woman since. Cautious inquiries. She’d avoided those as well too, focusing only on what she had to do now. Hoping against hope that she’d be able to follow up on those overtures later.

If she survived the surgery. If, after taking out whatever it was Yinsen had left behind in her brain, it would prevent Immortus from taking control of her mind as well. From rendering her into a puppet to be used to destroy the Avengers sooner rather than later.

~*~

The night before surgery, Hank warned her that he was going to have to shave her head.

“Hey, if you can,” she joked, running her hand through her thick, though short, dark hair ruefully. “Leave me a Mohawk like Storm’s. Maybe we’ll start a mainstream trend.”

His smile was weak, but there. His gaze somber, concerned. “I’ll see what I can do, Antonia,” he promised. “Begin fasting now, please.” And then he left her alone.

Then she made the mistake of playing the latest of the dozens of video messages Reed had been leaving for her.

He came on the screen looking tired and old.

“Antonia, I don’t know what project you’re absorbed in now or when you may be available to visit, but, remember I do value your input greatly on all matters, not just the scientific. And I had thought… after your return from the other dimension… well, that hardly matters now.” He threaded his hands tightly together and sighed deeply, his gaze dropping. “Valeria’s mother is here.” And Tony flinched. Hard. Because Susan Storm Richards, Consort of Atlantis, was six months pregnant with a baby that, -- Reed had confessed this to her completely inappropriately one night after a bout of sex in his lab –, might not be Sue’s new lover’s but Reed’s instead. “Officially, she’s calling this a visit with her brother and her daughter, but privately she’s asking me to provide her with asylum from Prince Namor himself— during a recent argument, it seems she expressed her doubts to him regarding her current pregnancy’s source.”

Tony bowed her head and swore foully as Reed finished the message with another entreaty for her to call him. Good going, Sue, you impulsive, self-centered, flaming idiot, she thought bitterly. Nothing riled up an old-school chauvinist like Namor more than being told he’d been cuckolded and that it had possibly resulted in the child he’d been gloating to everyone about making his heir. Good _Christ_ it was a disaster with international repercussions. And Tony briefly thought of the reserved, responsible-seeming version of Sue she’d met in that other world. God she wished the Sue here was like that one. Then she’d be more free to… well, that wasn’t happening. Especially not now.

And especially not if tomorrow’s surgery left her brain-dead. Hank had said there was a solid chance it could, despite his skill and knowledge.

The next-worst-case scenario. Amid her other plans and contingencies, she’d made certain to plan for that too. As well as the worst case – that trying to remove it triggered it instead.

Better death than let herself become a weapon to destroy the Avengers. To destroy Captain America.

 _Tomorrow,_ she thought as she sat alone in her lab that night, her gaze fixed on the Iron Man armor where it stood in its maintenance alcove, gleaming and whole, red and gold. It was always about what tomorrow could bring, wasn’t it?


End file.
